Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - What a Ride: Mariners' Season Ends After 18-Inning Affair

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Unfortunately, the Seattle Mariners season ended on Saturday night, falling 1-0 to the Houston Astros in 18 innings. But it appears the Houston Astros are desperate to start a rivalry between a team they don't consider a threat. That's believable, right? But on today's show, Colby and Ty discuss the incredible start from George Kirby, the dominance of the bullpen, and what the energy at the ballpark says to other teams and players! All of that and more on today's episode of Locked on Mariners!Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/SimpliSafeWith Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnMLB to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

One of the greatest seasons of Mariners history has unfortunately come to a close after an historic night at T-Mobile Park on Saturday. We've had a couple of days to sit and reflect on the loss and the end of this incredible journey this team took us all on. Now we're ready to talk about it. Colby, Hitting. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on podcast network. Your team every day.

It is Monday, October 17, 2022. This is Tyne Gonzalez and Colby Patnode for the Lockdown Mariners podcast. We're back. Thank you so much for making us to your first listen, subscribe, like, and turn on alerts if you're watching on YouTube or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform. If you like what you hear. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description below. Now, tomorrow's show will give this team a proper send-off.

But today we'll touch upon a little bit of everything from Saturday's game, including George Kirby. his incredible start and just the legendary performance by the mariner's pitching staff as a whole how this game exposed the mariner's biggest weakness and showed exactly what they need to accomplish this offseason and just we're going to talk about the overall atmosphere at team mobile park for its first playoff game in 21 years because it was absolutely electric whether you're at the ballpark or not you can tell and we're going to get colby's perspective on that with him being there but colby the Mariners after the series and yeah they got swept and it was rough but they have established now an actual rival not a force rivalry like with the Padres or what have you like a real rival that

Mariners fans can truly hate and that's good that's good because that means that you're actually doing something as an organization that means that you're actually accomplishing something as a baseball team but you know Colby as the Astros let us know on Twitter they refuse to lose. They embrace the chaos and they'll see us next year. Yeah, things you definitely say when you're absolutely not threatened by an up-and-coming team that really outplayed you for a majority of three straight games and very easily could be headed to the ALCS right now. Because, yeah, they're beneath you so you don't take those shots. Right? I mean, that's just logical, but I guess, you know, if you're threatened by somebody, you try and take them down a few pegs

when you still have some power. But unfortunately for them, it's not going to work. I'm just here to let Houston Astros fans know. And I know some of you have been trolling the show recently. Guys got to be careful because I'm telling you right now, nobody does petty in sports better than the city of Seattle. And if you don't believe me, you can go ask Russell Wilson what he thinks about it. you can go ask Oklahoma City Thunder what they think about it. So yeah, we'll see how it goes, but just understand something. It's going to come around on you. I know some of you guys are smart out there, some of you Astros fans.

There's a few smart ones of you. And you can read the writing on the wall of how things are starting to shift, right? Maybe you're on top right now, but things are starting to shift. And you just had, well, let's see, 36 innings of playoff baseball as, you know, of a just kind of a proof of concept that things are starting to shift the gap between these two teams has never been smaller. Mariner's have a long way to go, but they've never been closer. And they have the money, they have the resources, they have the prospects, that they can turn this thing into a real battle for the supremacy of the division for the next half decade as we wait for Texas or

Oakland or the Angels to step their game up. So don't worry. We don't know. Congratulations. Angels. That's true. Congratulations. You guys were the better team. No question about it. 1-30. You won by four games or by four runs. Wow. Domination. Yep. Definitely reason to talk smack for a team that's been to six straight ALCS is we beat this peasant of a team by four runs. Okay. Good luck against Houston. Good luck against New York or Cleveland. we'll see how it goes for you.

But yeah, I'm sure you're feeling great about how your team played over the last three games. Yeah, I'd say that Houston has a very good path to winning a championship this year, whether they face New York or Cleveland plus San Diego and Philly on the other side of things. Like they're not going to have to face the Dodgers. They're not going to have to face the Braves.

Boy, they better do it this year then. They really do. Because how many ALCSs can you go to without another championship before it's it's really not for anything. Like imagine you go, you go play the Yankees, right?

And you lose four to two. All that smack talk to play six extra games that didn't mean anything. It's very like Buffalo Bills ask. You want to be the Buffalo Bills? Or do you actually want to be like, you know, a good team that actually wins championships

that actually, you know, finishes at the end of things, you know, like doesn't just make it to the dance actually, you know, dances their asses off, which I know the Mariners did a lot this year and I know that the Astros are dancing their way

to the ALCS but I'm just going to say this as much as you know Astros fans have let me know on Twitter that this is a you know a championship baseball team you know that I could never imagine that you know as a Mariners fan which is true I've never watched a championship baseball team in my life I've never rooted for a championship baseball team in my life totally true totally fair point

it's really weird though for a team that's made it to six straight A has made it to a few World Series. You're really celebrating the hell out of winning the ALDS. Again, something you definitely do when you're not threatened by the team you just beat. Yeah, we don't think about you guys at all. You guys are nothing to us. So it's fine. Hey, you get your ALDS when now.

That's cool. You meet the Mariners. That's great. And hey, you know, I didn't have any expectations of the Mariners actually won in the series. I went on locked on Astros and I said Astros and five. I was a couple games off. I mean, technically one game off if you want to count Saturday's game as two games,

which you literally could because it was quite literally two games, 36 settings. And of 30 of those 36 innings, the Marins were either tied or had the lead. So pretty close. But at the end of the day, the Marins did not win this series. and for a lot of reasons, one being their offense, which I think we should get into right now,

because the offense was not good on Saturday. And this showed you exactly what the Mariners' weakness is as a whole. They are just, they don't have enough pieces in place, offensively speaking, to beat quality pitching, which the astros have a lot of. By the way, I just want to make it clear. My beef is with Astros fans and the Astro social media team. Not the actual team itself. Not the actual Astros.

They're a really good team. No beef whatsoever with those guys. That's a really good team. A lot of talent. Jorda and Alvarez is awesome. That pitching staff is disgusting. And you saw it. But this Mariners offense is just not built yet to beat quality pitching like that.

Lance McClure's just shredded through them. Julio was just completely utterly confused by Lance Berlors' sliders. and you know and that's really the story at the end of the day the mariners didn't have depth offensively to score any runs to you know they had opportunities they had a couple guys in scoring position at times with you know a chance to walk it off and just couldn't get that hit uh and you know usually like when they were able to get someone on base their two three four guys were not able to drive them in tie france had some really rough at bats adam fraser had some really rough at bats in the six or seven hole wherever he was in

lineup and he had a couple of opportunities to walk it off. That's just what it ultimately came down to just the mirrors just don't have enough offensive firepower to go out and beat elite pitching when it really matters right now. And so that's what they have to work on this offseason. I think that's really the biggest goal heading into the offseason is building an offense that can actually beat the Garrett Coles of the world, the Justin Verlanders of the world. And yeah, they had success against Verlander last Tuesday, but you need to be able to rely on that more, not to just like, look at that and be like, yeah,

that's kind of a fluke. And like the next time we see Verlander, that's not going to happen again. Like you want to have at least a little bit of confidence going into any single game that you're going to be able to score at least a couple of runs. Because not being able to score any runs through 18 innings of baseball against any pitching staff, that's bad.

Yep. So this is what we're going to be talking about all off season long, really, with this offense is you got to add, more firepower. You got to add elite offensive talent. Now that doesn't mean that we're going to be, you know, saying the Mariners need to go out and sign Aaron Judge

but we're going to be talking a lot of it. Yeah. But we're going to be talking a lot about, you know, the Zander Bogartes of the world, the Carlos Correa's of the world, the Andrew Benitendez of the world, the Brandon Nemo's of the world. We're going to be talking about trade targets, all that stuff. It's going to be a lot of fun. All right. So I want to give props to this Mariners pitching staff because

you know, in order to get to 18 innings of ball without scoring a single run. You needed to be pretty darn good pitching wise and they were excellent from top to bottom and it all started with George Kirby. We'll be talking about his day and the pitching performance from the

Mariners bullpen in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by SimplySafe. The numbers don't lie. In the last decade, over 4 million people have chosen Simply Safe home security to protect their home. You don't earn the trust of that many people without doing

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You're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen. George Kirby, man. George Kirby. What can you say? I mean, this was an elimination game in the first playoff game at T-Mobile Park in 21 years. And you're a rookie.

Like, and you're going up against the defending AL-Chief. champs. The team that has gone to six straight ALCS, a team with tons of firepower throughout its lineup, including Jorda and Alvarez and Jose Altuve and Kyle Tucker, all those guys. And it just didn't phase George Kirby whatsoever. He goes seven scoreless innings in this one, gives up just six hits. A lot of them just kind of little dink and dunk shots. And he strikes out five, doesn't walk anyone. I mean, the Mariners pitching staff as a whole, only walked one guy the whole game for all 18 innings. They had a couple of hit by pitches, but that was it.

And I mean, he got into some trouble there, especially in the, I believe it was the seventh inning that he got into trouble and Pete Woodworth came out, kind of calmed him down. I think he was like even cracking a joke with him or something. And like George kind of like turned his back on Woodworth and like didn't even want to talk to him.

And then he comes back and gets the next couple outs. It was just, it was awesome. This was a legendary pitching performance by George Kirby in a huge moment. And I mean, it's got to make you. feel confident for his career in general that he can like if he can do this now in a big game like

that given all the circumstances and not even look phase whatsoever by it like that's got to give you confidence that this dude is like really really special yeah um you know it was it was interesting you're facing elimination you know Kirby's in a little bit of trouble there in the seventh and uh you know and i believe out two days up and you're sitting there like okay well he got you got the nine hole guy out fine whatever but now this is altouvae curbies you know getting to the end of the road is uh probably go ahead and make it the change and and they didn't they they stuck with him uh and of course he goes out there and um he's he strike out al tuve it's hard to remember there were a lot of strikeouts in big situations from this from this pitching staff but uh either way he gets out of it

uh you know and it's it's that that little difference right there is what you know turns the performance from like like this great performance to like a legendary performance. It's getting that big out when the team finally, you know, has a threat. And everyone's like, okay, maybe they should, they should make a change here. And Kirby got it. And he was just in total control of this game from start to finish. It was vintage Kirby. It's what we saw before the, I mean, he had a little bit of a swoon there in late September.

I don't know if that was fatigue or what that was. But, you know, it was basically what we saw from that first Oriole start until, the start against what Detroit? It was basically the same George Kirby. And the fact that he was able to maintain that, that level of dominance all year and then carry it into the playoffs, really, is something that's, you know, incredibly impressive.

And Mariners fans should feel pretty confident knowing that they got a great one in George Kirby and really should feel pretty confident about, you know, all the, all the pitchers who threw in the playoffs this year, possible exception here and there. But, you know, Luis Castillo had two amazing outings. You look at George Kirby, he had a great outing. Logan Gilbert's outing, probably the worst, not made by somebody not named Robbie Ray, right? Probably the fourth best.

And it was still, what, five and a third of three-run ball against Houston. And two of those runs come on at like the cheapest double you'll ever see in your life. So, yeah, it was a really good postseason for Mariners pitching with the exception of one game. and yeah Kirby just kind of capped it off and that's definitely something to build on. Kirby probably enters this offseason as the Mariners second best pitcher behind Castillo, which is great great to build on and plan ahead with. He was sensational. And I mean, you think about the two moments that he appeared in this postseason,

holding a one-run lead in a hostile environment in Toronto to close. for the first time in his career coming out of the bullpen. Did it. No issues whatsoever. And then this game, again, the first playoff game in Seattle in 21 years, an elimination game against the Houston Astros and shuts them down. And obviously he had some help with the shadows and all that stuff. But again, like seven innings of shutout ball against that team in an elimination game,

George Kirby is a dude. like I felt like you know I usually go high upside with my Sy Young picks like I went Shane McClanahan this year there's a non-zero chance I'm taking George Kirby to win the Sion young next year I don't know if it'll actually happen but I think when we do our preseason predictions that's going to be a heavy consideration for me yeah when we do them in five months we do them in five months but like just think it out ahead like this guy like he's he's got the juice, man. George Kirby's got the juice. Now let's talk about the

bullpen, which was also equally phenomenal. And obviously, you know, Penn Murphy gave up the home run in the 18th. That means, whatever. You know, this bullpen was nuts. Andres Munoz came in and looked like Andres Munoz. Thank God. Three strikeouts. The slider

was disgusting. Diego Castillo was probably the weakest link. Maybe Matthew Boyd. Yeah, going to old Dominican big boss in that moment was questionable to say the least and did not go well. No, it did.

I don't think we're allowed to bash Scott today too much because his offense scored zero runs in 18 inning. Yeah. But yeah, we were going to nitpick a little bit. You know, yeah. Santant or Castillo for the ninth in a tie game and not Munoz for another inning. In an elimination game?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. or Eric Swanson, who, by the way, is alive. Did he look okay? Did he look okay? He looked okay to me.

I don't know. I just, you know, I know hindsight is 20-20. I don't want to do this to myself, but it was hard to think about, or it was hard not to think about what that could have looked like on Tuesday when he struck out Jornan Alvarez on Saturday. Didn't he struck out Tucker too? I'm pretty sure he did.

I think so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, tie real fast. If I told you the marriage were going to lose, right, they were going to lose one nothing in extras. Would you have preferred that they lost by Swanson giving up a home run to Yordon just so you could be like, okay, like, I know that's not how it works for normal people, but like we're not talking to rationality here. We're talking baseball. So yeah. Would you have preferred that or did you like that Swanson went out there and just like shoved and you're like, okay, well. I mean, like it was pain, but I was so fired up in the

moment too that it was like oh my god he just struck out your dad like he struck out Kyle tecker and all this stuff like we're yeah we're still alive like I didn't I ultimately didn't care in the moment but again it was hard not to think about what could have been on on Tuesday so I really I really think if you won game one you you would have won the series but whatever um yeah all right so if we talk about that later after Diego comes out though you know he gave up a couple base runners it was second and third after he got a sack fly Scott comes out and gets him. Thank God he didn't let him try to work through it.

I was a little worried about that. So good on Scott to at least recognize the mistake that he made and nip that in the bud and go to Matt Brash, who we said this season, if you were going to put Matt Brash in the bullpen, he was going to be that guy that if you need a strikeout, that's your guy. Like it's strike out or bust with Matt Brash. And he comes through with two of the biggest strikeouts. and I would say Mariners history even though they didn't even win this game I mean it was it was massive

that moment and I mean it was just filth it was filled the sliders to Jose Altuve Altuve had no idea what he was doing at the plate he looked completely utterly lost

I was surprised that that Altuve didn't have a moment in this series at all because it kind of felt like you know he's struggling but he's had such a great year like he's finally going to break through he got to like 0 for 14

0 for 15, 0 for 16. And it's like, he's going to come through here. And it's just never happened. Never got close, really, even. Now, Tuve still found a way to impact the game. We made a couple of really good defensive plays at second in game two. But yeah, I think he finished this series 0 for 17. I think he got on base once on a fielder's choice.

And he went 0 for 8 on Saturday. And the biggest one being the map rash strikeout. just, you know, Colin White Castle because he was just serving up all those sliders all day. And, you know, it's just funny. Al Tuve missed each one of the sliders by a wider and wider margin. He never even got close to making the adjustment on it. And yeah, you know, it was, it was fun to see because, you know, we saw Munoz.

I'll clean it up a little for the show. But I had put out the idea that Munoz had his FU fastball going in his outing. It was really the first time we've seen him dominate. with the fastball as opposed to the slider. Slider was still very good, but the fastball, he really used it this time around. Well, Brash brought out the FU sliders,

and Al-Tube didn't have a chance. He was missing those pitches by, like, a foot. And he just kept on throwing the same exact pitch, and Al-Tube kept on swinging at it. So, yeah, the bullpen was amazing, you know. You know, it's Brash and Munoz kind of steal the show, but Penn Murphy was great. Matt Festa was great.

We have to talk about Paul. well, through the most pitches he had all year and he's like worn down and he's had some really awful outings as of late and he got through it. It got a little dicey there here and there, but like for the most part, he shoved, as you said. And that was a great way for him to end his season. You didn't want him to end his season the way that, you know, things happened in game one. Like you wanted to get his confidence going heading into the off season and I think he did that and then some what a performance by Paul Seawald taking on that kind of volume of pitches

and being able to finish that ending off because you know with each out even though that he was able to get through it and able to get through those at bats I'm like what is Scott doing like why isn't he taking Seawald out he's like over 40 pitches now like what are you doing like you know because we know that Seawald has has kind of worn down here as of late but he I don't know he he just he didn't blow up it kind of felt like the blow up was coming and it just never happened and he was able to make some huge pitches. The slider was really effective. A lot of good sliders in this game. Matt Festa, you know,

you mentioned him just now. Two scoreless innings. Slider was great. Like, he was dominant. Really, like, all of these guys were dominant, aside from Matthew Boyd, you know, Penn Murphy. I mean, even Murphy looked decent despite giving up the home run to Pena. Like,

these dudes, you know, this, we've talked about this being one of the best bullpins of baseball. It looked like it. And they needed it to look like that. Mm-hmm. A true team effort. They used everybody and they even had to dip down and use Robbie Ray again. You know, Robbie, you got it done.

Yeah, yeah. No, he looks like he was using the slider a little bit more than his last outing, you know, his last two-pitch outing, both fastballs down the pipe. So, yeah, it was kind of nice, you know, Robbie retires aside. And I don't know if you heard it on TV, but there was Let's Go Robbie Chance and stuff like that. So that's good. Yeah, you know, it was there was no booing a Robbie Ray or anything like that. So it was, you know, it was a good reminder that Seattle fans are pretty good. Yeah.

You know, there. Well, it's a good reminder that like, hey, man, we got your back. Like a lot of people are saying some stuff about you right now. But hey, we got your back. You're ours. And like, look, like Mariners fans don't really have a choice either, right? To root for Robbie Ray, you know, like he's going to be back next year. Like, he's going to be a big part of this thing.

Sure. And again, I think people kind of overlook how good Robbie. Ray was for a majority of the season. He just, you know, was his absolute worst at the worst times. Sometimes that happens, you know, so, but yeah, you know, now in the stands where there are people like, Robbie Ray, uh-oh, like, yes, I would say a majority of them.

But outwardly, you know, as far as he could hear, it was, you know, let's go Robbie. And, you know, there's a, it's kind of a mini standing ovation when he got out of that inning. So, yeah, you know, uh, Mariner fans. they can be pretty annoying on socials but at the ballpark they're pretty great sometimes

yeah I want to talk about that at the end of this they they lose the game people have been there for six and a half hours or whatever and I can't even imagine how you and everyone else there felt because like me watching the game at home and the comforts of my bed for most of that game

I was tired of it I was done I didn't like there was a point obviously I wanted the mirrors to win but there was a point where I'm like just end it I'm done watching baseball. I'm tired of watching baseball. I just want to move on. I don't care what happens at this point. Like I, but at the end of that, let's go Mariners. Astros are celebrating on the field. Let's go Mariners. That's awesome. That's such a great moment. That's such a great sendoff for this team. That's such a, you know, it's an appreciation. It's a love letter to this team. You know, it's a thank you for

taking us on this ride. I, you know, I know that there was like, like a Reddit post that said like, oh, we should have a parade for this team. No, no, no, no. No, that's that's something. But I do think that maybe there should be like maybe an event or something to just kind of say thank you to these guys. Maybe something at the ballpark or something like that. That would be cool. But I think that, you know, knowing that that's not going to happen, this was a really nice send off, considering the disappointment that everyone just had experience.

Yeah, that happens opening day, 23. Um, so. Yeah, but I mean, like some of these guys aren't going to be back and all that. Good. I never have to see Adam Fraser swing his pool noodle called a bat again. I'll be the happiest person on earth. Hey, don't disrespect the slaughton on this show.

I will not let you disrespect the Slapton. His swings were the worst swings I have ever seen on a professional athlete on Saturday. Oh my God. Every single one of them was was like a sword. Like just, it was so bad. So bad. But we will get to him when we do our second base preview probably sometime next week. But no, it was an event, man.

It certainly was, you know, it's unfortunate. The game going so long, I think kind of dampen the idea that people were going to, you know, wait around for like a curtain call and stuff like that just because, again, six and a half hours in, six and a half hours in, whatever it is. You know, that's a long day at the ballpark and it's a one-nothing loss in 18 innings. Like people,

I think they just wanted like, like, like a game like that really test your love for baseball. It does. It does. And, you know, to people's credit,

there were a few people who left, you know, 13th, 14th inning, which I could even blame them for. I was like, okay, fine,

whatever. But yeah, I would say the last out there was probably still, 42,000 people there. Like, I would say 95% the crowd was still there. Yeah, it was great. You know, I could look down from where I was sitting and I could see like the, you know, people get up and the games over and they exit and you can see like the wave of people leaving.

And I saw that. You know, I saw people after the, after the home run, especially. And I was like, okay, well, people are leaving. And no, most of them came back down. So I don't know what what had happened there But yeah, it was a great crowd Definitely ran out of some some steam After about the 13th, 14th inning

A lot of people were just like Like I can't I can't keep standing up And doing all this so You know, emotionally draining day But it was a good crowd It was best crowd I've ever heard At least innings one through like 12, 13 somewhere in that range

And then even the rest of the end The rest of the game It was still a good crowd. like don't get me wrong but it was definitely you know you could tell it was it was just a worn down and just kind of like a like there's like actual like physical tiredness that set in um because you know you got to pace yourself uh as a fan sometimes but nobody's ever prepared to pace themselves for 18 innings that just doesn't happen ever so uh it was it was still it was a great crowd though and and uh you know it was it was it was a lot of fun and there was a lot of uh uh appreciating

from Mariner fans to the to the players. Not that many Astros fans. There was a little tiny streak of orange by their dugout, but that was it. It was a sea of white and navy throughout the ballpark. So it was a great experience. You know, there weren't a lot of Astros fans in the ballpark. I happened to stand next to a couple of Astros,

groups of Astros fans in line to get into the ballpark, but that was it. for the most part it was all white and and uh hey you know those astro fans were cool uh lady shared a story with us uh the group i was with that uh you know she's an astros fan uh she's from texas her family was and uh she told a story about how when back in 2003 or four or whatever uh she was at a san antonio rock hounds game or whoever the the minor league affiliate is down there in san antonio and they waited outside of the clubhouse for an hour to get Felix Hernandez to sign his San Antonio Missions jersey and Felix signed it. So it was a cool story to read.

And yeah, you know, I feel like for everybody at the ballpark, there's an appreciation that they were there. You know, and it was just something that they witnessed. And, you know, I didn't, I didn't hear of any fights or anything like that. Again, not a lot of Astros fans. There weren't, you know, I didn't hear of any obnoxious Astros fans at the ballpark. or anything like that. So I think it was just kind of a communal thing where even if there were, you know,

different factions in the ballpark, there seemed to be some kind of mutual respect about, you know, two high quality baseball teams go into absolute battle with each other. And, you know, unfortunately, in a war of attrition, the team that's more heavily fortified often wins.

And that happened to be the Astros. Yep. But this is going to be a fun rivalry for many years to come. And the Mariners are, on their way up. The Astros know that. And that's the thing. Like, if you're actually getting legitimately upset about the tweets,

you're being silly. What it ultimately is, to me, at least this is how I'm taking it. It's a sign of respect. It's a sign of great respect for your team. It's a sign that, like, they know. They know what's, like, happening here. They know what's brewing here in Seattle, and that's great. And, you know, it's great that, you know,

finally people outside of the state of Washington, you know, and the few of us that are spread out across the world, respect the Seattle Mariners. Right. And I mean, that's a great thing. Yeah, you look at some of the national guys and they're talking about what an amazing atmosphere it was at the ballpark and how Seattle is a baseball town. And, you know, we had talked in the past about, you know, Seattle as a baseball town,

it's a sleeping giant. And one day a team's going to wake it up and it's going to unleash, you know, hell on the rest of Major League Baseball. And it happened. And you saw it. And I guarantee you this, not only did the national media people saw it, see it, so did other players. And they can recognize what's happening here is special. Agents, yep.

Yep. Agents, fans, the league. Yeah, you think Seattle's going to be on Sunday night baseball and ESPN a few times next year? I bet on it. So, yeah, it was a great announcement from, you know, the city of Seattle and Mariners fans in general that we're here. You're going to recognize us. You're going to respect us. and sometime in the next year or two,

you're going to fear us. And I think all those are going to come to fruition here. So we're running a little late, but there were a couple of things that we do need to mention. First of all, Felix, getting Felix to throw out the first pitch. I had my doubts because, you know, we know that the relationship between Felix

and the organization hasn't been great since his exit. So there was a little bit of doubt in my mind that he would actually do it. But, I mean, I felt that you needed to do, that you needed to have. someone that was a part of the drought and a part of those dark years actually throw out the first pitch for the first playoff game in 20 years and there was no one better to do that than felix because i mean itro had gone to the playoffs you know some of these other other players had gone to the playoffs in

seattle felix though never and that was such a beautiful moment oh my god it i i didn't see it live because they didn't show it on the broadcast oh i just i yeah i saw it on i saw it on i saw it on on Twitter though and you know the emotions I was I was overcome by the emotions of it all it was awesome to see Felix again that was really cool yeah the the video they played beforehand was was awesome they didn't even like announce like turn your attention to center feet blah blah blah it was just awesome it was just up there and it was just like almost like a neon gold crown they put on the video board and at that point you know pretty much everybody knew it was going to be Felix the the the buzz had started that he was in the ballpark and obviously he's there right he's

he's there to throw out the first pitch. But yeah, I just popped up on the screen. I think you can find it on, on Mariners Twitter. I think they posted the video that they showed. It was a great video and it was awesome. He came out of,

out of center field, you know, and obviously they're playing, you know, the man, his, as he walks to the mound. It was great.

And then, you know, Felix kind of took the, the lazy way out. He didn't go up on the, on the rubber. And he kind of like, literally just like shot,

put in a baseball up there. It was like, by the way, Felix, buddy. to have Goody catch it too. Sure. I thought Echro would have caught it, but yeah, I mean, Goody's great. Everybody loves Goody.

So, yeah, kind of a week first pitch from Felix and I'm being honest. Awesome entrance, though. And he was a good hype man for, you know, some of the lull in the game where they'd flash him up in the box. And he tried to get people hyped. And it was just awesome to see him back at the ballpark because, you know, the history of the Seattle Mariners can't be written without Felix Hernandez. does. He's the best pitcher in franchise history. And it'll be interesting to see what happens here. He hasn't officially retired. He's not coming back to Seattle to pitch. Don't worry. But he hasn't officially retired yet.

And this will be his third year out of baseball, which means next summer would traditionally be when the team puts somebody in their team's Hall of Fame. Is Felix ready to accept that? And officially say he's retired because the league appears to have retired him for himself. But if they were going to do something like that, next summer would be the first summer they would usually do it. So we'll see. It was just nice to have him back in the ballpark, though. Awesome to see him. Awesome to see him in a Mariners uniform again and doing something with the organization.

And that gives me hope that, hey, like, if he doesn't do the Mariners Hall of Fame next year, that it will happen soon. Sure. I mean, he will be back. And I don't think there's any love loss between Felix and in the fans. Between Felix and the organization, maybe a little bit, which is understandable from Felix's standpoint, but also, you know, I'm not going to let Felix off the hook for the last three years he had here. But I'm also not going to like hold that against him forever. So yeah, you know, hopefully it's, it happens

next summer. Maybe they can announce like a statute being built of him because he absolutely earned it. And it's going to be the perfect game. Oh, yeah. He's the Felixing. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's Felix's, you know, it's a good reminder of how special Felix Hernandez is and, you know, how much Mariner fans love, love their guys. It's really a relationship that's tough to find anywhere else. Mariner fans are sometimes over loyal. And that's why we're going to get yelled at about our takes about Mitch Hanover.

Just warning you guys now. Yeah, absolutely. You're not going to like what we have to say about Mitch Hanager this offseason. No, but we're just being realist. You guys can be fans. That's fine. But in this case, Felix absolutely deserves the admiration that he received on Saturday.

For sure. All right. Lastly, you wanted me to remind you to shout out a listener of ours that you. Yeah. So I actually ran into three. I didn't catch the second guy's name. Unfortunately,

we were kind of headed to our seats at the time. But when I give a shout out to Owen, who I met. Let's see, that was probably pregame. I think it was pregame because you messaged me pretty early on. Right. And then.

afterwards on the way, you know, on the way to my seats at the cracking game, which I only got to see the last period of 18 anings of baseball will make you late for a hockey game. I ran into another fan whose name ironically is also Owen. So shout out to the Owens. Wow. And also shout out to the one gentleman whose name I didn't catch. You also said hello. So yeah, appreciate that.

Hopefully we'll see you guys at the ballpark next year. But yeah, thanks Owens. and Owen, Owen and somebody who I'm sure will reach out and tell us that was them. What does your family think when you get recognized at the ballpark? Do they rib you a little bit over it? I was with my aunts this time and my cousin and my mom. We all went together. And yeah, my aunts think it's like this really super cool thing.

And it is cool. You know, it's fun to say hello to our listeners and all that stuff. I don't mind it at all, but yeah, sometimes they think it's like this huge deal. And I'm like, I'm just a dude on a podcast that he listens to. It's really not that huge of a deal. But no, I enjoy, I enjoy saying hello to you guys. So yeah, don't be afraid to say hello. I'm totally cool with it.

But yeah, it's sometimes I think my family thinks it's like a bigger deal than I do. I'm just like, you know, it's cool to meet people and all that stuff. No, isn't it awesome? I mean, yeah, but not like, I don't know. Like I'm not, I'm not sitting here like, oh, I'm George Clooney and that's the paparazzi, right? No, it's like, oh, hey, cool. Thanks for listening to this show. I appreciate it.

Yeah. When my wife, or when I told my wife that I got, you know, recognized a couple times at Rogers Center, she was like, oh, my God, that's so amazing. And I'm like, yeah, no, it's cool. But like, I don't have any delusions. But yeah, I appreciate. It's very cool. We love you guys. And it's awesome to meet you guys and actually put faces to, uh, to, to see.

of the comments and just some of the listeners in general. It's awesome. Just understand that like, like, we're not like, like, yeah, you know, I'm keeping track now. I've met 18 people, you know, in the last three games. So pretty a big deal. Like, we're not running to our bosses and then bragging about it. You know what I mean? Unlike some people we know. But anyways. Yeah. Shots fired. Every time, every time I meet someone, hey, hey, hey, guys, I took a picture with a fan. Look, I got

recognized because I have oh it's just so necessary for me to be recognized and and for me to get a nice little pat on the back from everyone even though it just completely goes unread and completely ignored anyway it's going to do it for our show thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown air keep saying hi at the ball guys yeah keep saying hi to us and we love we love hearing for me it keeps sending us comments keep sending us emails we love to hear everything that you guys have to say it's it's awesome where we're going to be doing a lot of that talking to talking to you guys over the next few months as we make our way to spring training we're going to have a lot of fun during the off season talking about trades free agency this is our this is our shine this is our

moment this is what we love to do the most on this show this is what we train for yeah exactly and we have you know a lot of new listeners that we've gained over the last few months so just telling you guys, this is what we love to do the most is off-season talk. Obviously, we love to talk about when the Mariners are in the playoffs and contending for a World Series. That's great too. But Jerry's season, folks, Jerry's season is the best and we're going to have a lot of fun covering it all. And we'll tell you more about what our plans are for that soon. But tomorrow, we're going to give these guys a proper send-off. We're going to do some, you know, awards, some team awards and all that stuff later on this week. We're going to go, you know, position by position, do some

breakdowns, do some free agency previews, all that good stuff, and really get into the nitty gritty of this. But again, that's going to do a far show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marries podcast for Colby Pat Note. I'm Tadangaz. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez at C-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first list. And now make your second list in the Locked MLB podcast. MLB expert Paul Francis Sullivan brings humor, passion, and unique perspective on every team and the biggest stories around the league. Follow the number one daily league wide

podcast, Lockdown MLB on the Odyssey app, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcast just like us. And with that, have yourself a beautiful baseball day. And we'll see you tomorrow. Peace.